Anne Applebaum: Russian ideology is a mishmash with legs
Halfway through an otherwise coherent conversation with a Georgian lawyer in Tblisi the topics included judges, the court system, the police I was startled by a comment he made about his countrys former government, led by ex-president Mikheil Saakashvili. They were LGBT, he said, conspiratorially.
What did that mean, I asked, surprised. Were they for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transsexual rights? For gay marriage? Were they actually gay? He couldnt really define it, though the conversation meandered in that direction for a few more minutes, also touching on the subject of the former presidents alleged marital infidelity, his promotion of female politicians, his lack of respect for the church.
Afterwards, I worked it out. The lawyer meant to say that Saakashvili who drove his country hard in the direction of Europe, pulled Georgia as close to NATO as possible, used rough tactics to fight the post-Soviet mafia that dominated his country was too Western. Not conservative enough. Not traditional enough. Too much of a modernizer, a reformer, a European. In the past, such a critic might have called Saakashvili a rootless cosmopolitan. But today, the insulting code word for that sort of person in the former Soviet space regardless of what he or she actually thinks about homosexuals is LGBT.
It was an eye-opening moment. Like Ukraine, Georgia is a post-Soviet republic that has tried to pull itself out of the Russian sphere of influence. Unlike Ukraine, Georgia does not have a sizable Russian-speaking population, and Georgians even have cause to fear Russia. Since their 2008 invasion, Russian troops have occupied the Georgian regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, about one-fifth of the country. Russian tanks are parked a few hours drive from Georgias capital.
http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2014/03/29/anne-applebaum-russian-ideology-is-a-mishmash-with-legs/
jakeXT
(10,575 posts)Prosecutors office said on March 27 that it would offer ex-president Mikheil Saakashvili to conduct questioning via Skype without the need for him to arrive in Tbilisi.
Saakashvili was summoned by prosecutors for questioning as a witness in multiple ongoing criminal investigations; the former president, who left Georgia in November, had to appear before prosecutors on March 27, but he refused.
Such an offer from the prosecutors office was expected as earlier on March 27 PM Garibashvili said that a witness should not necessarily be present in prosecutors office for questioning and the process can be conducted via video link. The PM also said that he jump to conclusions when he said in a newspaper interview last week that Saakashvili would be put on wanted list in case of his failure to appear before prosecutors.
..
In an interview with the Rustavi 2 TV, broadcast on March 25, Saakashvili reiterated that he would not arrive in Tbilisi to appear before prosecutors for questioning, citing that the process is politically motivated. He also said that he left Georgia upon EU and U.S. officials advice in order to avoid being arrested a scenario, he said, would have derailed Georgia from its European path.
http://www.civil.ge/eng/article.php?id=27084
bemildred
(90,061 posts)jakeXT
(10,575 posts)bemildred
(90,061 posts)PosterChild
(1,307 posts)"...like it or not, foreign policy choices increasingly have domestic consequences in the post-Soviet world. An alignment with Russia can bring Russian-style corruption and can inspire the rise of Russian-style xenophobia and homophobia, to. An alignment with Europe and NATO has different consequences...."
PROGRESSIVE consequence, I would add.
bemildred
(90,061 posts)That is no surprise in a period of such rapid change and migration of labor.
She makes the sound point that we ignore it at our own peril. If we do not truly help countries like Ukraine or Georgia, we will lose them, it is not some automatic thing that they will choose the western model. There are plenty of strong reactionary parties in the west too, our own Tea Party for one.
PosterChild
(1,307 posts)... progress does not come without effort. And, in fact, we cannot even maintain the status quo without effort.
To use a humorous, and perhaps inappropriate, analogy from Annie Hall: Democracy is like a shark - It has to constantly move forward or it dies. And the last thing we want to have on our hands is a dead shark.
bemildred
(90,061 posts)But you are right, democracy is something you do, not something you have. If you don't do democracy, you don't have it either. You can't just leave it up to the politicians.